Jonathon Reynolds
   |
Posted - 2003.11.08 11:31:00 -
[1]
Ack, come on .. no-one ever sells megacyte to NPC corporations; the reason being that they can get triple the price from PCs.
There is still "plenty" of megacyte out there, however anyone who mines it regularly will tell you that as time progresses, it is NOT respawning where it was mined; but further and further away from stations.
Until some greater method of hauling/storing the bistot is introduced, the manpower required to mount a large-scale bistot mining operation will make it somewhat prohibitive to any but the largest corporations/alliances.
For example, a skilled miner in a battleship with harvesters and miner 2s can pull around 60 bistot/minute; that's 960m¦ per minute.
A "good" industrial pilot can carry 10,000m¦ of ore in one haul; this takes under 11 minutes to mine.
Given that most, (if not all) bistot is found 20 jumps from a station; and (assuming good bookmark preperation) the trip back to station takes 20 minutes, with a further 20 minutes to return to the bistot site; (this is a conservative travel-time estimate) the end results is thus:
You need 1 pilot to provide cover.
You need 1 pilot to mine.
You need 4 industrials to haul.
And that's a "best-case" scenario .. base cargo for many none-specialised haulers is 5,000m¦ - 7,000m¦; meaning you could need up to 8 industrials to one miner ..
Also, the industrials will be entirely unprotected on their trip to/from the station without additional escorts along the way; meaning that they will be ripe targets for PC pirates.
So, best case, (risky) scenario is 6 pilots for an uninterrupted, "effective" bistot mining operation.
Worst case scenario; 10-15 pilots.
If you want more people mining bistot; do what's necessary .. increase logistical capability for deep-space operations.
Bigger haulers, larger secure cans, player-owned "storage depots"; etc .. the reason more people aren't mining bistot isn't because they're scared of pirates or can make more in empire space; it's just not feasible for them to do so.
Heck, the most effective thing you could do to get more people mining bistot in 0.0s is add a few stations here and there in the "fringe" systems where bistot can still be found (without refining capabilities; merely for storage) so that small-scale bistot mining is more attractive.
|